I Will Get Back Up Again

Trusting yourself and finding your way through the hard

The last few weeks have been the most emotionally challenging since my daughter’s cancer treatment. Some of the feelings I felt when she was sick resurfaced and I’ve been quieter online as I attempt to navigate what she’s going through, and how it’s made me feel. To be clear, her cancer is not back, and we quickly ruled that out as a possibility.

Things I’ve been concerned about for years have come to the surface, and I’ve been really angry. Anger tends to be my go-to, except I’m not confrontational at all, so I tend to rage internally and talk to friends I trust about those feelings.

And yes, I am working on this in therapy.

There’s also been this shift of navigating motherhood as an influencer or content creator or whatever you want to call it with respect to my children. To their identity and their right to privacy. I always struggled with what to share and was mindful of how I shared my kids, especially when it came to my daughter’s cancer treatment.

We all go through hard things. Through various types of loss, sickness, breakups, and just feeling stuck or broken. It happens to everyone. And when we share the hard, things often feel a lot lonelier for all of us.

Navigating my toddler’s treatment and having a newborn during Covid was not great for my mental health. I was a shell of a person beyond my ability to show up for my kids which I honestly excelled at. I channeled my type A virgo energy into making sure she never missed a dose of daily chemo. Into making sure things were clean and safe for her. She wasn’t going to get sick because of a careless mistake that I made, and she didn’t. I didn’t let anyone near her unless they isolated for weeks. I worked with specialists to figure out the best way for me to communicate what she was going through. I was able to support other moms going through the same thing which looking back, was really hard, but healing, too.

During treatment, I couldn’t imagine ever being normal again. So I was surprised by my transition to normalcy post-chemo. I didn’t think I’d get there so quickly if ever. Life has felt so good since July 2022.

And then the last few weeks happened, and these moments didn’t compare to what we went through back then, but they brought up a lot for me. Add in the election and I’m just anxious and angry. So I want to share more about what’s been going on and how I’m taking care of myself.